Due to the game's many variables, an accurate description of life at the controls of an X3 craft is not easy. At times it can be hellishly combative, at times relaxing, and at times a real brain tease. We can authoritatively say that things can become somewhat bland every now and then if you don't dig into its adventuring, entrepreneurial side. And certainly the distances between assignments and objectives are lengthy -- though you need merely hit the J key to engage time compression.

We'll simply say this -- though your ships are easier to fly and maneuver than you might think they might be in such a complex sim, ultimate success and ultimate reward come only through discovery and exploration and a willingness to, in the words of the US Army, be all that you can be.

What space sim would be complete without jump gates?

Apart from a rather obvious case of perspective distortion that manifests itself at the outer edges of the screen and those frame rate issues discussed earlier, X3 is a beautiful game. Though many of the peripheral ships that come and go are essentially duplicates of a limited number of basic models, the bigger craft and particularly the space stations are dazzling – fraught with painstaking detail and modeled in a most imaginative fashion.

The inky blackness of the cosmos isn't nearly as inky black as it should be, what with planets, debris, asteroids, and all manner of craft littered about. The lighting is solid -- though much more so if you happen to own a Herculean PC that can fully display it -- and the particle effects accompanying rapid ship movement lend a sense of speed and motion. Additionally, the game does a great job of conveying size and making both you and your ship feel incredibly small and insignificant. Go ahead -- approach that far-off docking station and feel the sense of awe as it slowly fills your monitor and dwarfs everything you hold dear.

Not to be outdone, the audio landscape is a pleasant one. The musical score is especially notable for its ethereal quality and at times its very obvious similarity to a rambling Pink Floyd concert. To say its mellifluous strains tend to open the mind for the subject matter and those nifty visuals may sound a bit spacey, but it does just that.

You're never very lonely in the X3 world

The game's sound effects seem somewhat muted, never blowing your tweeters or woofers, but they're generally sophisticated and varied enough to further the illusion. And just in case you think you might get lonely up there, EgoSoft has so many ways to keep in touch with your fellow space cadets -- and them in touch with you -- that you just might feel part of an ongoing gab session. Too bad then that the game so often allows one voice clip to run into and/or over another.

Multiplayer support is not part of the package, though we wonder if it really would have added anything significant. Being as far away as it is from a pure shooter and instead emphasizing a whole life space experience, X3 is simply not an ideal target for typical multiplayer craziness.

The Verdict

We, as gamers, generally want the same things from developers as professional sports teams want from athletes -- effort and desire. In X3: Terran Conflict, EgoSoft has clearly given us both. Lovingly concocted, generally well executed, and hampered only by a few niggles, this is a game that not only achieves its goal -- plunking us into another time and place to live the life of an entrepreneurial spaceman -- but shows us that some titles can truly take us places.